Stargate: TRON?
by Alex Mcpherson
Summary: Rodney's a long-time friend of a trio of computer guys from a company called Encom, and before his stint with Area 51/sgc/russia/atlantis, he was one of a select few who got to explore another... reality.


TRON: Atlantis

Stargate Atlantis/TRON crossover: The device that converted Flynn to a program is rather like a transporter, only... different. And not the first one around, either... So when the Ancients' version is used... well, people come back from the cyber world different, as Flynn could attest, but then, Rodney knew that as always, when alien technology was involved, it became at least 10 times worse... or better, depending on how you see it.

Sorry for a - the lack of formatting aside from italicalised messages between characters. I wrote this in the document editor here on FFN. and b - how it skips a lot near the end, as I intended to do it as a one-shot and it got away from me. So that's why it's marked complete, though really it's far from.

Prologue:

Early 1990.

Rodney looked at his computer, as a program sent a message to his screen.

_"Hi Doc, it's me, Program Flynn Tron. Dad wants to know if you want to take part in this years' Freedom Anniversary Tournament. Grandad promised to let you borrow that molecular scanner from Encom for a month if you said yes..."_

A.I. was not a new thing to Rodney. But he still remembered last years' tournament... So he began typing a response.

_"After Your mom kicked my ass in the knowledge competition? Not really interested. Although I would like to spectate. Is You're dad competing? Or Alan?"_

It was perhaps an odd twist of fate, that he was beaten in a knowledge game by a computer program of all things, but he'd never say stuff like that. Five years of knowing CEO of Encom, Alan Bradley, and Kevin Flynn, both the best computer software engineers in the world, _before_ being introduced to the Cyber World through their eyes... Well, Rodney was fascinated by it, but didn't much like the method of getting there. That and a single night in the real world tended to be weeks of equivalent experiences within, due to the faster nature of computers, meant that he was in a big quandry over liking and not liking it. All that work he could get done, but then the whole 'I could cease to exist if they have a power cut.' That, and the others learned fast as a matter of due course.

_"Nah, Gramdad only participates on the landmark tournaments, the 5th and 10th. And Since I'm old enough to compete, Dad says he'll let me have a shot. Mom was looking forward to beating you again, but since you're not competing, well, I wonder if she even will compete in any part of it"_

_"Which Games are you playing?"_

_"Oh, a few, but I'm really looking forward to the new one from Uncle Kevin. I've been practising with my Mark 0.9 Light Jet for 900 cycles now - about a month your time - And Looking forward to getting my hands on the Mark 1. It's a Race between Encom's Servers. Start in the Washington Server, through New York, a 'leg' over to European Server #3, navigate the maze of interconnected ones to #2, then we've got to go through the one-way-connections between a few unreleased servers in the place you call 'Germany', then switching to Lightcycles, head to the england server... well, it's a pretty cool race. I've been, ah, memorising the route."_

_"Isn't that cheating?"_

_"Not really, we've had 1500 cycles now to learn most of the routes. We're supposed to be left to find our own way through and between some of them, though. I honestly don't want to know what going through China's backbone servers are gonna be like, if that rumour was true. I tell you, last time I had to hack through those, I ended up offline and buggy for 100 cycles. Dad and Grandad were mad as hell, and Dad didn't talk to mom for asking me to pick up that data packet from her friend in beijing for most of that time."_

Sounded like a right story behind that one Rodney thought, but then he'd had to hack through those firewalls before, too.

After a moment of talking, he realised that he had to go, and gave his goodbyes. Unfortunately, he wouldn't even get to spectate that year, as he joined Area 51 for a project...

Chapter 1

Rodney smiled at Alan, he'd brought John along, to surprise him with the part where humans had already attained a digital world like the one they'd encountered on the ancient ship 'aurora' a while ago. It was the first time they were on earth since that, and were due on the daedalus back for atlantis in a week.

Hooking up the ancient device he'd borrowed, he nodded. "should speed things up."

Alan already knew about atlantis and all that, Encom had developed the computer systems of the Daedalus class (Rodney's suggestion).

A split-second later, the three disappeared from the Laser Lab of Encoms' secret warehouse in location unknown, and appeared within the much-developed-over-the-last-decade Cyber World.

John looked at Rodney's new clothing, that he was glowing blue, that Alan appeared young again and wore a similar clothing to Rodney, only with more style, and what he'd call a rank emblem, although he didn't recognise it. Then he noticed he wore something similar to Rodney's only not so good.

Then an Alan-lookalike, who was glowing a softer blue and wore much the same as Alan approached folloowed by a kid, who had a strong resemblance to Alan's son, Jethro, whom John had briefly met earlier that day.

"Sheppard, I'd like you to meet Al and Jet Tron." Alan spoke.

"Where the hell am I?"

"The Tron Family Server." Al Spoke, and held a hand out for him to shake, after a moment ofwhich John did. "Welcome to the cyber world, Colonel. I'm Albert Tron, and I guess you'd say this is my, 'son', Jet."

"A... Server..."

"Like when you were in that stasis pod on the Aurora." Rodney supplied, making him not doubt that so much.

"Still... This is earth..."

"This has existed like this for over 3 decades now." Rodney told him.

"We're AI but like yourselves, we need to be 'programmed' like you 'Train' or learn, to be able to do something. Jet here can do much what I and my wife can because we both wrote him."

John blinked, so Rodney supplied, "Yori and Albert made a hybrid program based on themselves with a few tweaks, although not literally every bit of them within in. Much like half of our DNA from our Father and the other half from our Mother."

Suddenly, a flash of light raced towards them, and 'hit' Jet on his arm. He looked at it, and picked up some kind of device from the device strapped there. "Hey, Dad, Grandad, Uncle Kevin's just uploaded the Mark 6 patch for my Lightjet."

Rodney grinned at Sheppards look fo curiousity. "Digital Airplanes. Really cool..." His grin dimmed a bit, "When I'm not flying it anyway."

Sheppards' eyes lit up. Within a minute, Jet and John were both off, walking to a cool looking digital car, and Rodney was left shaking his head.

"So, you're just in time for the 30th Freedom Anniversary Tournament." Albert spoke up, grinning. Alan shared his grin.

"Ah crap."

Chapter 2

He wasn't entirely sure, but he was mostly sure that his grin was stuck like that now, he was enjoying himself that much as he piloted Jet's two-seater Type 2 Lightjet, with Jet having to only show him a few things one time each.

"Hey, You're a natural." Jet commented after a moment. "Say, you wouldn't be any good at programming?" He asked after a moment.

"Why?"

"Well, Programmers from your world are just about banned from official games, because being Users you have so much control over the digital world around you. But you dont' seem like the other programmers than have been here."

"What about other, users?"

"Well, it's more that they don't realise they have that control, and anything they do do beyond what we programs can do, is just more instinct than intention."

Silent for what he thought was seconds, he was startled when the plane approached a wall. He pulled up and turned, heading back. "What was that?"

"The Map Boundary." Jet supplied. "The Family Server has one of the biggest personal area for us out of the entire cyber world, because we dont have as many programs to occupy it. Dad and Mom can pretty much run it together. Others need Kernels and a legion of programs running the Operating Systems, that, ah, 'digital estate' as it were, is kind of limited there. We have half the overall space, but way less than half to occupy it."

Sheppard realised that some of the words used was from things like First Person and Strategy games.

"It's more challenging piloting through the Encom Capital Server, all the folder buildings making a maze with huge vertical space... But there's so much traffic that after the third time I crashed my first lightjet there, well... I was cut off for a week."

Sheppard listened, as the Cyber World was explained to him. Highways between Servers with various junctions - those junctions being the physical connections between computers around the world. Servers being like cities, with villages of PC's where each one was a house.

But ofcourse, that wasn't very clear, as Jet wasn't allowed to take him out onto the internet or to the Encom Server that they had a private 'road' to. Not until he'd been briefed on certain things

"So, ah, howcome I've never heard of this before?" He asked about an hour later. "You know, people coming back from here talking about the cyber world?"

Jet shook his head, "Not many do come here. Most Users talk, or direct or command us from just sitting on their computers, not realising we exist as full AI, albeit not in the way they think we'd exist. They think of AI in terms of an entire Operating System as a single program, when it's actually, as I said before, a group of programs. We exist the way we do without others who haven't been here realising, because their understanding of just how computers work is still at a level that wont even show that we exist. Just like a ship may detect on their scanners the heat of a person, the brain waves of their mind, or movement of their heart pumping blood and so on, all the indicators of life, but knowing that doesn't mean you can detect a human soul. Loads of people have dead - their bodies simply stopping and no brain waves, only minutes later being revived. Yet medical professionals insist that the soul isn't real and that no brainwaves means your dead, and not the absence of souls."

"You believe in the human soul?"

Jet nodded. "I believe in it existing in a certain way that lets us exist, feel and all that here, just as you exist, feel and all that out in your world. This is simply a different kind of existence from yours. I do wonder what it'd be like if a program got into the real world, like you have coming here."

"You want to go out into the real world?"

Jet nodded, "I've seen the photos on the Internet. Your world is slowly shaped by you, but it was in its particular shape before humans came along. This world? It's nothing until you turn a new server on and we create the 'city' it supports. I've remade the area around our 'home' to suite what I need for my job and hobbies. It's just plain 'land' now with free sky for flying. But give me a cycle... I mean, an hour your time, just about, and it'll be mountainous terrain with bridges and stuff. My dad likes to go Rock-climbing."

**Authors Note**: Sorry, Skip a huge part I dont have time to write, as this was just a bunny.

Chapter 9 or something

Sheppard grinned as the group returned to the Tron Family Server.

"Well, it'll be morning in your world, so I think you best return now..." Albert Tron was saying.

Sheppard barely paid attention, focussing on smuggling out the rod that contained a Mark 5 Lightcycle...

In the real world, John blinked, and looked at the rod they had returned with. Rodney saw it, looked at him, looked at the laser emitter with the ancient device attached, then back again, before a minute passed and he uttered, "Oh Crap."


End file.
